PICTURE GALLERY.

A Catalogue of the Pictures (which are now exclusively Portraits) was printed some years ago by the Janitor. Since then, the following additions have been made[388]:—

Froben, the printer. By Holbein.

Bequeathed by Rawlinson.

Oliver Plunket, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh; executed in 1681. On panel.

Bequeathed by Rawlinson.

James Edward, the 'old Chevalier,' and his wife Clementina Sobieski. See p. [169].

Bequeathed by Rawlinson.

Sir R. Chambers, Chief Justice of Bengal.

Sir R. H. Inglis, Bart. By Richmond.

Dr. Routh, President of Magdalen College. By Thomson.

Dr. Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta.

The Earl of Derby. By Grant. See p. [281].

The Prince of Wales. By Gordon. See p. [304].

The following Curiosities and Models are exhibited in the Gallery:—

1. Chair made from the wood of Sir F. Drake's ship. See p. [94].

2. Chair of Henry VIII. See ib.

3. Guy Fawkes' Lantern. See p. [97].

4. A series of casts of various ancient Temples and other buildings. See p. [236].

5. Model, in teak wood, of a subterranean palace and reservoir, in Guzerat; beautifully carved, and exhibiting the whole of the interior construction and arrangement.

Presented in 1842 by Sir J. W. Awdry, Chief Justice of Bombay.

6. Cases of Italian medals, medals by Dassier of English sovereigns, &c. See p. [182].

7. Two plaster casts of monuments from Nineveh, now in the British Museum, with cuneiform inscriptions.

8. Model, in papier-maché, of the Martyrs' Memorial, beautifully executed.

Presented in 1844 by the late Rev. Vaughan Thomas, B.D.

9. Plaster model of the Waltham Cross.

Presented by the same donor.

10. Casts of the Elgin marbles.

11. Alabaster model of the Cathedral at Calcutta.

Given by the late Bishop Wilson in 1846. This beautiful model was executed at Pisa; it was exhibited in the Italian department of the Great Exhibition in 1861.

12. A large and fine model in cork, of the Amphitheatre at Verona; by Dubourg.

13. Model of the Royal Yacht in 1697.

14. Glass case, containing:—

i. Two Chinese rolls, one silk, the other paper, containing coloured drawings of the banks of the river Tsing-Ming, with scenes illustrating the manners and amusements of the country.

ii. Collection of Indian weapons presented by Mr. Elliott. See p. [291].

iii. Series of clay figures, coloured, representing all degrees of rank, &c. among the Chinese.

Brought by Col. Gibbes Rigaud, of the 60th Rifles, the donor, from Tien-tsin, and given in 1862.

iv. Handbell from a temple at Tien-tsin. See p. [33].

v. Small Chinese figure of a deity, in brass; from Pekin.

vi. Half-burned copy of a Russian translation of the Pickwick Papers.

Found in the Redan at Sebastopol, when that battery was stormed on Sept. 9, 1855. Given by Rev. F. J. Holt Beever in 1856.

15. Portrait, on a large roll, of the late Emperor of China, seated, with a bow and arrow in his hands.

Above is an autograph inscription by the Emperor, in verse, in praise of archery. Brought by Col. Rigaud from the 'Summer Palace.'

16. Another glass case, containing:—

i. A series of carved and coloured ivory tablets, representing Chinese life and manners, partly broken; with some grotesque figures, probably of deities, carved in wood.

Believed to have been bequeathed by Rawlinson.

ii. A series of small Chinese paintings on ivory.

From the Douce collection.

iii. Three sets of wooden roundels[389], or trenchers, of which two are round (numbering thirty plates), the other square (numbering twelve); with mottos, in the former case in verse, in the latter consisting of precepts from the Bible. One of the round sets belonged, in 1599, to Queen Elizabeth. The verses are sometimes humorous, sometimes moral, and strongly dehortatory from marriage; not, however, out of any flattering deference to the condition or supposed inclination of the 'Virgin Queen,' but chiefly in accordance with the opposite view taken by some hard-hearted misogynist. Of the two classes of motto, let these stand as specimens:—

'If that a bachelor thou bee
Keepe thou so, still be ruled by mee,
Leaste that repentance all to late
Reward thee with a broken pate.'

'Content thyselfe with thyn estate,
And send noo poor wight from thi gate:
For why this councell I thee give
To learne to die and die to lyve.'

iv. A large set of wax impressions of seals. See p. [183].

17. Model, in wood, of the Temple at Pæstum.

Carved by Mr. Thomas Wyatt, of Oxford, about 1830.

[374] Many autographs of distinguished literary men are found in the old Registers of all the persons admitted to read in the Library, since in these the readers themselves generally entered their own names. The first 'Liber admissorum' contains the names of both graduates and non-academics, the names in the first case being only in part autograph; it commences about the year 1610, and ends, in the case of graduates, arranged under their several colleges, about 1676; in the case of strangers, at 1692. The second Register, which is 'peregrinorum et aliorum admissorum' alone, begins at 1682 and ends at 1833. The first existing register of books used by readers begins Jan. 3, 1647-8, and ends Dec. 30, 1649. The following are some of the names, of some special mark, which are found in the Admission-books:—

[375] Of this xylographic Apocalypse the Library possesses two other editions; one being that called by Mr. Sotheby the Fourth, which was given by Archbp. Laud, and the other being that called the Fifth by Sotheby, but 'Editio princeps' by Heinecken, which was bought in 1853 for £120 5s. Other Block-books in the Library are, (1) two editions of the Biblia Pauperum, or Scenes from Bible History; one coloured, the other (which belonged to Douce) uncoloured; (2) the Historia B. M. V. ex Cantico Canticorum, being the edition called the Second by Sotheby; (3) Propugnacula, seu Turris Sapientiæ, a broadside, bought in 1853 for six guineas. A facsimile of this is given in vol. ii. of Sotheby's Principia; (4) Speculum Humanæ Salvationis. In this book, which is the second Latin edition of the work (formerly described as the Editio princeps), twenty pages are taken off from wood-blocks, and the rest from moveable type. The copy belonged to Douce. It came previously 'ex Musæo Pauli Girardot de Prefond,' but is not mentioned in De Bure's catalogue of that library, published in 1757. It is said that a copy of this book has been sold for the large sum of 300 guineas.

[376] A touching letter, in English, dated June 28, which Laud forwarded, together with this formal document, is printed in vol. ii. of Wharton's edition of his Remains, p. 217. In the same volume are included copies of all the letters which accompanied the Archbishop's gifts to the Library. The following reply (ibid. p. 177) to a notification from the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Frewen, of the visitation of his collection, and of the giving special charge to the Librarian respecting their safe custody, seeing that they stood unchained, and in a place frequented by strangers who came to see them, should have been noticed in its due place in the Annals.

'Sir,

'I thank you heartily for your care of my books. And I beseech you that the Library-keeper may be very watchful to look to them since they stand unchain'd. And I would to God the place in the Library for them were once ready, that they might be set up safe, and chained as the other books are; and yet then, if there be not care taken, you may have some of the best and choisest tractats cut out of the covers and purloin'd, as hath been done in some other libraries.'

'W. CANT.
'Lambeth, Nov, 15, 1639.'

[377] Pedigree of the family of Lane, p. 392 of the Boscobel Tracts, edited by J. Hughes, A.M., second edition, 1857.

[378] No. 7762 in the catalogue of the South Kensington Museum, in 1862.

[379] Mr. John Gough Nichols, in his collection of the Literary Remains of Edw. VI, printed by the Roxburghe Club in 1857 (vol. i. pp. cccxxiii-cccxxv), describes these volumes at length, and assigns the whole of both of them to the pen of the King, but some part of the first volume corresponds much more closely with the usual style of Elizabeth's early writing, and a memorandum by Hearne testifies that it was regarded in his day as having been written by her.

[380] 'The poem of Joseph and Zuleikha, in the Public Library at Oxford, is perhaps the most beautiful MS. in the world; the margins of every page are gilt and adorned with garlands of flowers, and the handwriting is elegant to the highest degree.' (I. Disraeli's Romances, 1799, p. 52.)

[381] This book, which has appeared since the earlier sheets of this volume were printed, contains descriptions, with facsimiles, of the Leofric, Dunstan, and Mac-Regol MSS. and of the Rawlinsonian Life of St. Columba, besides those noticed above.

[382] Cædmon was a monk of St. Hilda's Abbey, and died in 680. Bede (Eccl. Hist. iv. 24) tells the well-known story of his being miraculously enabled by a vision to compose vernacular verses, when previously he had been entirely unable to compose or sing a line, so that when present as a layman at feasts where, on the principle of 'no song, no supper,' every one was expected to raise a lay in his turn, he was wont, when he saw the harp coming round, to rise from his place and go home supperless.

[383] This MS. is noticed by Warton in his Life of Sir T. Pope, p. 73, where he also quotes Hearne's account of Elizabeth's New Testament, which is described at p. 52 supra.

[384] Lent to the South Kensington Museum in 1862, from the catalogue of which exhibition (under No. 202) the above description is taken.

[385] Rawlinson, C. 876, f. 52.

[386] Catalogue of the South Kensington Exhibition, 1862, p. 672.

[387] Another specimen of Mr. Rassam's caligraphic skill is to be seen in the Common Room of Magdalene College (in which College he was entertained for some time), where the College arms are represented in the same manner.

[388] Besides some restorations from the Randolph Gallery of portraits formerly removed thither.

[389] An engraving of a roundel (then, with others, in the possession of John Fenton of Fishguard) of which the exact counterpart is found in one of these sets, is given in the Gent. Magaz. for 1799, p. 465. As it is not known how long the Library has been in possession of its present collection, it is possible that Mr. Fenton's series may now be included in it. A description of a set of the time of James I may be found in vol. xxxiv of the Archæologia, pp. 225-230; and a notice of the Bodleian trenchers in Notes and Queries, 1866, p. 472, and other communications on the subject in the first volume for 1867.

APPENDIX E.

Numismatic Collection.

The collection of Coins and Medals was commenced by the gift from Archbishop Laud of five cabinets of coins, in 1636[390], to which he subsequently made some additions. These were accompanied by a very full MS. catalogue, which is now preserved among Laud's MSS., No. 554. In 1657 a large addition was made by Mr. Ralph Freke (see p. [88]), and numerous small gifts came from many donors in

following years. A catalogue, upon which Francis Wise had been engaged for a long period, was published by him in a folio volume, in 1750, entitled, Nummorum antiquorum scriniis Bodleianis reconditorum catalogus, cum commentario, tabulis æneis et appendice. Wise remarks in his Preface, that no donation, however trifling, was rejected, and that, consequently, there was (as there is still) a very large quantity of Middle and Third brass coins of little or no value. From Rawlinson there came, in 1755, besides coins, a collection of Italian medals (Popes, Medici family, &c.), and numerous matrices of seals, chiefly foreign. Browne Willis contributed the most valuable portion of the whole collection, in his series of gold and silver English coins[391].

Subsequent benefactors have been C. Godwyn, in 1770; Douce, whose collection included those of Calder, Moore, and Keate, and from whom came a series of Tradesmen's Tokens; Dr. Ingram, in 1850, whose bequest included some British specimens; the Queen, who gave, in 1841, a portion of the treasure found at Cuerdale (see p. [264]); Mackie, Roberts, Elliott, whose valuable series of Indo-Bactrian coins was presented in 1860 (see p. [291]), and Dr. Caulfield of Cork, who presented in 1866 a large collection of the Gun-money struck by James II in Ireland. The Ashmole coins were transferred from the Museum, together with Ashmole's library, in 1861. There is also a cabinet of Napoleon medals.

No catalogue of any portion of the contents of this room (excepting a brief description of the Cuerdale coins) has been issued since the publication of Wise's volume. For some short time past, however, W. S. Vaux, Esq., of the British Museum, has occasionally afforded his valuable services in arrangement and description; and it is hoped that before long the whole of the collection may be reduced to order and properly indexed.

By the statutes of the Library, the Librarian, or one of the Sub-librarians, must always be present when any coins are exhibited; nor may they be shown to more than two persons at a time, unless two officers of the Library, or a Curator, are present. No examination of coins for the purpose of comparison with other specimens is permitted.

[390] Amongst these are several rare Hebrew specimens. Laud's letter of gift, dated June 16, is printed at p. 94, vol. ii., of his Remains, edited by H. Wharton. A curious collection of Roman weights came among early benefactions; they are entered in Wise's catalogue.

[391] The special gems are a gold Allectus, and the famous Reddite and Petition crowns of Thomas Simon, the latter of which was struck in 1663. The Petition crown is probably the one which was sold in Dr. Mead's sale in February, 1755 (Cat. p. 186), and which is noted by Rawlinson in his copy of the sale catalogue as having been purchased by — Hodsall for £12. A gold Allectus was sold at the same sale to the Duke of Devonshire for £21 5s.